Somewhere between Amateur and C level. In doubles I'm usually able to return the flick serve, but they're poor returns (either some weak and high drive, poor quality clear, or a slow drop) and I want to work on that. Besides just seeing what the footwork is like, and then having someone do flicks to me over and over again... I'm not sure how else I can work on getting them better. Any suggestions?
This is a very good way to do things.. making a separate thread for the specific thing. This way things don't get buried and things are more organised.
Ideally it’s best to see how you handle flick serves in actual game situations. So if you record all of your games you can just edit all of the times they flick serve you
At 3:20, 4:25, 10:40 I did a smash and a slice. I am the one in black and blue shoes I think once you know the footwork, you should work on your reaction speed. I personnaly think that's key for a good return
During games is good for video examples, but should be easy to film someone doing flicks to you. too, and that has benefits to video too. If you want to edit quickly, maybe Mason can suggest something for video editing.. I know somebody that used to use Premiere Pro but then it went to a cloud based subscription.. I haven't seen them for a while but didn't get to ask them if they worked around it /bypassed it, or switched to different software. BTW Mason has improved his returns of flick serves, looking at his recent game most of his return flick serves were much improved footwork so he may have some good suggestions there too.
I have noticed a huge Improvement on my flick serve as well , thank you i Have personally made a lot of improvements on my flick serve returns and l am not standing around 6-8 inches from the serves line. But what I have done is follow the few tutorials on YouTube. Both badminton family and badminton insight has good flick serve tutorials. I found some of your flicks serves and made a video. You will be able to improve your returns very easily by fixing some glaring issues 1.) you are standing too far to the right of the court move closer to the left( watch pros to see how far left they stand) 2.) you need to keep your left leg forward. Right now you are turning your body around to hit a serve with your back hand... you should not do that. 3.) you are not pushing off of your left leg to go backwards. This is the cue that help me the most. Drive hard with your left leg to get yourself going backwards Compare your movement with mine... now I know I have a lot to improve on but you can clearly see how I drive my left leg hard to get back as fast as possible the good news is you can practice this footwork on your own without a partner and make a lot of progress
@Mason, the retrieving flick serves that I remember seeing from your recent games you mostly didn't land too badly, though in those ones you showed there you landed really badly, very off balance. A good example of how to land is in the Badminton Insights video at 2:21
Well even the badminton family channel will say that sometimes you land poorly but it’s ok because your partner can cover
yeah, you can get caught, and i've heard that from a top player too.. but when focussing on them in practise or in games following practising them, so where that's the intention then it's more doable to land properly.. In your case your partners can't even cover you when you do a great shot! I watched some good return of flick serves from you and it's completely wasted on your partner! I think one should look in part at landing properly. It also adds a whole lot of reliability to the shot.. Because if you didn't land properly then you were a bit off balance on the way. Though if you get caught then you have no choice.. And It's certainly good to be aware if you didn't land well.... what landing well looks like and what landing badly looks like, of course there are degrees of bad landing..
At beginner/low level a standard low serve is seldomly attacked, most players will play a lift when receiving a low serve, so the low serve works very well for the server. But once the receiver will know, that you only play your standard low serve, he will get more and more to the front line and eventually start to attack your serve. A flick serve from time to time is often enough, that a player at this level will stop attacking your serve. When receiving a flick serve, it is often enough to play it downwards. You dont need to kill the flick serve and get immediatly a point. Just playing it downward will get you the attack, and therefor a lot of value, compared to the lift response of low serve, where you lose the attack. Though this changes at higher level where it is common to attack a low serve and kill a flick serve.
